Testimonials

Dear Sook Wai,

Caleb attended many different reading and writing classes before coming to Ireadandwrite. The reason for the constant change was because he was not progressing in those tuition centers that were always boasting about the high success rates of their students. The changes took a toll on Caleb as he became discouraged and suffered from a lack of self-esteem. Fast forward to today, Caleb is writing stories for other students to read at your center. He now speaks and reads with confidence that we have not seen before. We enjoy reading every story of his and it makes us so proud to see him excel in his school work. All credit goes to you – Teacher Sook Wai. The patience and encouragement of you and your teaching team has restored Caleb’s confidence and he is now on the right path to fulfilling his potential. Thank you Sook Wai and your team of dedicated teachers. You are the gold standard of teaching with passion!

Geok Fang

Dear Teacher Sook Wai,

My twins have been attending Ireadnwrite since they were 5. I really appreciate the approach Sook Wai and her teachers adopt, which is focused on the love and joy of reading, which in turn nurtured their love of the English language. This is drastically different from what is offered by other reading programs or English enrichment classes in the market as those emphasise on rote learning. The teachers at the Reading class, were patient and encouraging, which helped to accelerate my daughters' reading skills as they looked forward to every lesson. I have since also enrolled my son in the school and he is already reading at a level above his k2 year. Thank you teacher Sook Wai, Janice, Grace, and Mei Swan.

Regards
Hui Yen

Hi Sook Wai,

Just want to thank you for your effort in encouraging Jacob to pick up reading and now to be more confident in his writing. When Jacob joined IReadNWrite, he was struggling to read. He could not read fluently even though he was taught the phonics system. Upon my cousin’s recommendation, I sent him to you and I was amazed at his progress. The whole language approach gave him the confidence first to read aloud and then to figure out words on his own. Today, he is confident to pick up a book to read on his own and his favourite books are the “Spy Dog” series. From reading, he progressed to the writing programme. He was having great difficulties with spelling but he had no problems coming up with ideas or with verbal expression. However, the school environment does not encourage students like him who struggle with spelling and hence, he had quite a hard time in P1. He often compared himself with others and felt that he was less able than others. When he joined the iwrite programme, the classes provided a very nurturing environment in which he was able to overcome his fear of writing.

I really appreciate it that you make the effort to encourage, praise and reward things that Jacob does well in and give him help where he is weak without putting him down. The learning continues but I believe that because you have helped the students to have a strong foundation in grammar and to think creatively albeit in a structured way, Jacob and the students will progress well. Thank you also for taking the time to give us parents tips on how to help our children and to help us see the forest (love for reading, language and expression of ideas), not just the trees (examination marks, school performance)! I hope you will be able to continue to input in Jacob’s learning journey.

God bless you richly in your continual efforts to make a difference in the children’s lives! Thanks again.

Mei Yee

P/S I asked Jacob what he thought of my little speech about him and he said, “You forgot to mention that I read a lot nowadays!” Indeed, it is true that he loves to read by himself – which is in no small measure a result of your effort.

Dear Sook Wai,

My elder boy, Josh attended I can Read since he was close to 3 years old. After 18 months, I transferred him to L Central & he went through a highly intensive regime with the final stage of ‘Lift Off’ 9 month program comprising reading with phonics, spelling tests (10-15 words each time) , comprehension & composition. He was at L Central for over 2 years. He did ‘graduate’ from their literacy program but the results were ‘half-baked’. He could barely read fluently nor enjoy reading the least bit. In fact, he really had fear whenever I took a book out to read with him! He hated the regime of having to memorise sight words & being constantly tested on.

Zach , my younger boy also went through the same method as Josh. I started him at L Central when he turned 3.5 years old. However, seeing the results & fear in Josh made me withdrew him from the final stage of their program. The homework (which parents have to do with the kids) is just tedious & stressful for parents as well.

I asked around for good literacy programmes as I understand the child needs to be able to read by P1. Friends introduced me to a few schools but when I met Sook Wai & understand her programme & method, I was convinced to give it a try! Her underlying philosophy is to cultivate the deep love of reading & having a passion for writing. Of course, the best part is no homework for parents to do with the kids at all! I truly need to create the love of reading in my boys which was so pathetically lacking after attending all the previous intensive programs.

Josh was assessed by Sook Wai & was at level 3 when he started. Within 2 months, he progressed to Level 5 & was able to start ‘I write’ Programme. Sook Wai believes in building a strong foundation of the English language & will dive deep into the basic understanding of grammar before the writing begins. Within a short time, I see Josh becoming a confident reader & most importantly, his love of reading was evidently growing. It was amazing to see him reaching out for books & reading on his own these days. What a transformation!

I took a risk with Zach, stopping short of the grueling program at L Central to switch to a totally different method with wasn’t phonic-based. Zach was level 0 when he started at Sook Wai at the end of K1. In less than 6 months (Twice weekly lessons), he accelerated towards final stage of Level 3 by the 2nd term of K2. He will take books to try reading on his own at home & Sook Wai’s method successfully inculcated the curiosity & fascination of getting lost in a good book, even with young children. I was apprehensive about Zach but seeing how much he thoroughly enjoys the lessons at I read & write was very reassuring.

In less than 6 months, both my boys’ attitude to the English language was transformed. Witnessing their love of reading is more than enough for me because I know with this love & passion, they will embrace the language whole-heartedly as they grow.

A BIG THANK YOU to Sook Wai & her dedicated team of teachers! It’s always a FUN room for the boys & they will eagerly run upstairs to start their lessons! Please keep this passion burning & know that you’re building such a wonderful foundation of the English language in our little children.

Warmest,
Glenda TAN

Dear Sook Wai,

Kiran started at I read and write when he was almost 5. A friend highly recommended the program to me and I wasn’t even sure Kiran was suited for it as he was then struggling with phonics and couldn’t even put 2 sounds together. He enjoyed the lessons from the onset as the class setting was very relaxed and he got to enjoy some playtime in between his reading sessions! He progressed really well there and because he became more confident at reading, he was also able to learn phonics better at his preschool.

Reading and understanding whole words clicked with him and after 1 year at i read, Kiran is at level 5 which is amazing considering he started from zero! I am so happy at his reading ability and much more at ease that he is a reader going into Primary One next year. We are joining the I write class next year and we are both looking forward to it!

Mrs Cheryl Murthy,
Parent of Kiran Murthy

Dear Sook Wai,

I have two children, a girl in Primary 1 and a boy of four. My daughter started the ireadnwrite program when she was three and a half years old, and I think the program was instrumental in helping her to be the confident reader that she is today. My son joined her this year, and enjoys his lessons tremendously as well.

I believe that my children have benefited from small class size and the one to one instruction from the teachers. The pace of the lesson is tailored to the child's ability and learning style, and there is never any pressure to keep up with anyone. It also helps that there is no homework to do after class!

I find that the "whole-language approach" used by Children's Cottage is a useful complement to the phonics taught in my kids' preschool because there are many words in the English language that cannot be sounded out using basic phonics. In all, I would highly recommend the IReadnWrite program for all preschoolers learning to read.

Mrs Leong Gin Gin
Parent of Melina & Micah Leong

Dear Sook Wai,

I enrolled Megan with Children's Cottage 2 months before her 3rd birthday as she loves books and story time.

At that time, she was the youngest in class and have short attention span, I was not sure how much she will learn. However, in less than 6 months, she was able to read on her own.

It's been awesome seeing her progress and how she takes on reading pro-actively. The results were amazing and she believes that reading is fun which is incredibly important. Many thanks to Sook Wai, Grace, Jane & Angali. You are all doing a GREAT job!!

Best wishes,
Amanda Ong (Megan Tan's mummy)

Dear Sook Wai,

Thank you so much for making reading thoroughly fun for our daughter Kathryn!

In Feb 2012, we sent you an active little girl who had little exposure to any educational programs.

In less than a year, we saw a remarkable improvement in her reading & expressive abilities.
Kathryn is now an avid reader with a good vocabulary.

Today, she is always eager to go for your reading classes at Children's Cottage.

We are very happy to see that Kathryn has developed into a super reader through your effective teaching methods & nurturing. We look forward to progressing her to your writing programme in the near future. We also highly recommend your reading programme to our friends who seek such programmes for their kids.

Brenda & Kelvin Yew
31 Jan 2013.

Dear Sook Wai

The mark of a good class is two-fold; firstly, the child enjoys himself and looks forward to class; secondly, he makes progress.

Sunay is not yet 4 and has been with 'I read and write' for 6 months now, his reading has improved by leaps and bounds. He can sight read most common words and more importantly, he is very confident in attempting to blend
letter sounds and read new words. More than his reading repertoire, the confidence he has built for trying to read new words and the love for reading he shows convince me that this is an amazing class!

Sunay enjoys playing with his friends in between reading and writing. I'm glad that he looks forward to his sessions with Aunties Jane, Grace and Sook Wai.

I will definitely place my other two children in this class once they are ready to explore the magical world of words.

Mrs Ratna Mishra

Dear Sook Wai

We would like to express our heartfelt thanks and appreciation for developing Hon Wei's interest in reading and writing since his enrolment in "ireadNwrite" programme in mid-2011, and subsequently "iWrite!" programme since July 2012.

Being bilaterally hearing impaired since birth, Hon Wei has come a long way from missing out words when reading a sentence, lacking comprehension of the story, to a fluent reader who articulates clearly at 6 years old. His penmanship has also improved significantly over the past few months.

What we are particularly delighted with is that Hon Wei enjoys the classes tremendously. We could see his growth in interest in both reading as well as the English language; he will often engage us in simple word games such as "let’s say words ending with '-tion'" and we are often pleasantly surprised by his breadth of vocabulary and his sentence structure etc. With the "iWrite!" programme, we are particularly happy with the approach from fundamentals, i.e teaching children what are pronouns, common nouns, adjectives etc. Many young adults in the workforce currently (Generation Y's) lack these fundamentals or foundation...

With dedicated teachers who are committed to build a solid foundation in the English language for the students, I'm sure all the children who have gone through the programmes at Children's Cottage will sail through the English subject at PSLE and beyond!

Thx for all that you and your team have done, Sook Wai!

Janiz Goh and KC Wong
Parents of Wong Hon Wei

Aunty Sook Wai, Grace and team have been a God-send to Kai Yuan. He started off as a feisty Pre-Nursery child who would grab books from me and shut them with a resounding "The End" whenever I tried to read to him. I love reading, and was dismayed that my little boy shared none of that love and was obstinately illiterate.

Then Kai Yuan was introduced to Sook Wai, and within weeks he was entranced. Sook Wai showed him it was possible to read, and he got hooked. He started asking for more and more books everyday before nap time and bed time. He also insisted on "playing at Auntie Sook Wai's" weekly and was most upset whenever it was the holidays.

Today Kai Yuan is a voracious reader who even before turning 5, was tested to be reading at Primary 1 level. He is a big fan of The Famous Five and discusses with me the plots of stories we read together.

Beyond reading, Auntie Sook Wai has also convinced the little man that writing is fun. This from someone with low muscle tone who most resolutely rejected holding a pencil. Now he writes his own stories, some of which are

hilarious - think cows who produce chocolate and strawberry milk! It has been an exhilarating journey for us, and I am so glad we found iReadnWrite. I would highly recommend it to anyone hoping to give their child the gift of literacy.

Thank you very much for giving Megan the best gift of all – the ability to read.

When we started Megan at Children’s cottage in early 2011, she has zero reading ability. Megan is a special needs child with auditory & motor skills issues and we were hoping that the whole language approach at Children’s cottage will be suitable for her learning journey. This is because Megan has been unsuccessful in her learning experiences at other enrichment centres.

Through your dedicated teaching, patience and determination, we are so proud that Megan is able to read quite independently and fluently now. She has developed a love for reading which will be very helpful in her learning journey to adulthood.

Her kindergarten teachers are so impressed with her reading skills. This has greatly boosted her self-confidence and self-esteem especially during her “show and tell” session in school.

We are very grateful that you and your teachers have accepted Megan readily as a special needs child since it can be very challenging when managing her. But you have done such a superb job. We really appreciate the benefit that Megan does not have any homework to do from Children’s Cottage and that greatly reduces the stress for us.

We will continue Megan’s learning journey with Children’s Cottage untill she is an accomplished reader as well as writer in your “iWrite” program.

Philip & Serina
Parents of Megan Chew

Dear Sook Wai

At the close of Elijah's learning journey with you and your team of teachers, I'm delighted to share that Elijah is a confident and avid reader who thoroughly enjoys reading.

From not being able to read comfortably when he joined at 6 years of age (mid-2009), to receiving compliments from his Primary One form teacher about his reading skills at the end of his first semester (mid-2010), the progress has been remarkable. He is able to read encyclopedic books on science and nature, as has can make out the various technical words with ease. Being able to read widely at this tender age is a true blessing, as he can independently expand his knowledge at an incredible rate!

A heartfelt "thank you" to you and the wonderful teachers who have nurtured Elijah's love for reading and writing!

I look forward to enrolling my daughter in your programme in the near future.

Your sincerely,

Wendy Tan

Li Min has Dyslexia. In Kindergarten, she has great difficulty with Phonics and could not read. I was thus
intrigued when we chanced upon a Children's Cottage's advertisement in a magazine, claiming that
4-year-olds would be able to read K2 level books in a matter of months.

Sook Wai told me of the 'Whole Language' approach to reading where children would learn to recognise the whole words (which is how children learned in pre-Phonics days). To ensure that the child was not merely memorising the text, the teacher would also write out the passages in an exercise book and get the child to read from it, so that there would not be any prompting from the pictures.

In this way, Li Min learned to recognise hundreds of words by sight and gained confidence in reading. She went through over 100 of the graded readers and enjoyed her lessons because work was punctuated by play in a Montessori-style classroom setting. I highly recommend this method of teaching to read in a pleasant setting.

Postscript: When Li Min was in P1, I had her tested with the 'Irlen' filters and fitted with a pair of Ilren glasses. These glasses filter out certain light frequencies and the effect for many dyslexic children is that the words on a page stop moving around. I would therefore recommend that dyslexics try out Irlen filters to facilitate reading. Since using the Irlen glasses, Li Min can see the sentences clearly and is able to read much more fluently. However, the foundation of Li Min's ability to read now was built patiently and painstakingly through the efforts of Sook Wai and her able team of teachers at Children's Cottage.

Mrs Helen Chan

Remarkable RESULTS!

My kid, Tricia of 4 years 9 months old has been with Iread&write Children's Cottage for over a year now.

Prior to that, Tricia only knows Alphabets and few words. We are very impressed how quickly she learns new words and is able to read books on her own with good pronunciation after attending the programme.

We recognize the learning approach adopted by Iread&write is efficient and effective for Tricia.

It's absolutely remarkable!!

Cheers to Sok Wai and her teachers from the centre.
-John Siah (Tricia Dad)

Dear Sook Wai,

Thank you so much for a wonderful 11 months of reading and writing with Alex. I was pleasantly surprised that he completed the programme within such a short timeframe. Alex had a fabulous time and benefitted so much from the program. He has developed a love for reading which I know will take him to adulthood. Everyone is so impressed with his reading skills and I know this is something I will be thankful for for many years to come.

We have many fond memories of all of you at iReadnWrite, and we will miss all of you, and the warm, loving environment he has grown to love and look forward to each week.

Wishing you continued success as you share the joy of reading with others.

Joy Chan
Mother of Alexander Chan

Our Son Curtis started the iReadnWrite programme at 3years 4 months and by his 4th birthday, he could read P1 level storybooks (with zero reading capability at the onset).

We can attest that this proprietary & holistic ‘Whole-word recognition’ approach has indeed worked for Curtis. Most importantly, of course the infectious enthusiasm & untrammeled passion of Principal Sook Wai & her teaching team have certainly ‘fast-tracked’ Curtis’ literary improvement & vastly expanded his armamentarium of words.

Sincerely,
Drs JW Chiu & PH Thong
Parents of Curtis Aaron

Hi Sook Wai, Grace, Mee Yeok and Anjali,

I just want you to know that I think you are doing a terrific job of helping Sher Mayne learn how to read and do word recognition in such a short span of time, six months to be exact. I am so proud that she is able to read quite independently and fluently, when she could only managed to read very simple words when we first sent her to you.

How impressed I have been of your contribution to help her along the way and must congratulate you on the superb job you have done. I really appreciate being the one who benefits this time since I really do not have much time to sit down and read to her and now she is able to do so all by herself.

Not sure how you managed but would like to thank you for your patience and determination in helping Sher Mayne in her ability to read. Job well done and I am sure there are others who feel the way I do.

Yours Sincerely,
Sharon Low
Sher Mayne’s mummy

Daryl (6 years) and Amelia (4 years) have been attending iReadnWrite for almost a year now. The classes have definitely helped them read better now. Especially for Daryl who will be going to Primary One next year, the classes have definitely provided him with a good foundation.

The classes are fun for the kids as they get to play with their friends while they wait for their turns with the teachers. This one-to-one teaching approach is very effective. The teachers are all friendly and cheerful, that makes the experience so pleasant for all! Never do I hear any shouting, but the teachers always use calm and firm approach.

I would certainly recommend this class to any parents who want to give their kids a headstart to a fun and enriching reading experience!

Auguste Ng

Class Schedule iRead:

TUE

WED

THUR

SAT

2pm

2pm

2pm

9am

3.30

3.30

3.30

10.30

5pm

5pm

5pm

12pm

Class Schedule iWrite:

IREADNWRITE.COM

iReadnWrite Programme is the answer to all your concerns. It is a premium holistic approach which has been proven to help children of all abilities to read and write effectively and efficiently. It is definitely stress-free, homework-free as well as full of fun!